Textile recycling to 'recycle' lives: this is how Cáritas returned more than 13,000 people to the labor market in 2023

13,266 of the 53,536 people participating in the Cáritas employment program have accessed a job, according to data from its Solidarity Economy Report 2023, presented today by the organization. Throughout the year, 15,355 people carried out 1,131 training actions that help reduce the “gap” that means that people at risk of exclusion have an unemployment rate seven times higher than the rest of the active population, as reported by Cáritas.

For all this, the Confederation has 68 social economy entities – one more than last year, although still below the 73 in pre-pandemic 2019 – that develop 265 lines of business in 37 sectors.. In 2023 it dedicated 136.8 million euros to all solidarity economy initiatives, 16.4% more than in 2022 and, in any case, a record figure.

Cáritas presented the report and part of these initiatives in Valencia, at the Moda Re – Koopera textile waste recycling plant. There are several actions that converge into one: collecting, selecting, cataloging and then selling second-hand clothes.. Cáritas claims to be in charge of 44% “of all the textiles collected in Spain”, 44,000 tons that end up in 8,038 containers. Although there is an obvious environmental component, the work allows, above all, the insertion into the labor market of people at risk of social exclusion, since they are employed in all parts of the process, from collection to distribution or the sale itself.

“We believe in an economic model that seeks the common good,” summarized Ana Heras, coordinator of the Solidarity Economy team at Cáritas Española, during the event.. Heras acknowledged that “it becomes evident” that these people develop their lives in a context in which they do not have the same possibilities.. “Employment has always played a significant role for Cáritas,” highlighted Heras.. Furthermore, it is a key pillar for insertion, but the directive recalled that to fulfill “this integrative function”, it must be “a decent job.”. The labor market, he lamented, demands more and more – training, soft or digital skills – but offers less and less.

The work of Cáritas on this path is to accompany people who, due to their vital processes – whatever they may be – have not been able to acquire the necessary skills.. With insertion companies they seek to help people learn to work by working: they are non-profit firms in which half of the employees are people in danger of exclusion who can stay for a maximum of three years, so that the process allows them to later join to the ordinary labor market.

Behind this “there are people,” recalled Aurora Aranda, director of Cáritas Valencia.. “We do not work with statistics, we work accompanying people through projects”. Thus, they assess profiles, skills, knowledge and develop itineraries and the necessary skills for these, both with individualized support and with group workshops.. They provide them, they explain, with tools and knowledge, among which there are also labor rights.. “It is possible to carry out a sustainable economic activity where economic profitability is at the service of social profitability,” said Aranda.

Mayerlin Carabali, a 33-year-old Colombian, is one of the people who are part of this initiative.. Cheerful, but still somewhat nervous about the avalanche of journalists interested in her story, she explains that she arrived through a social worker (they are also referred by the parishes that work with Cáritas). “It's been a change,” he summarizes.

“I have been learning, it has taught me to keep schedules, to be responsible, to follow bosses' orders,” Carabali illustrates.. He is proud when he talks about the 700 kilos of clothing he processes, on average, every day, but above all when he admits that now, a year after his arrival, he does it better. It also raises as its own – because they are – other messages that the organization boasts about during the visit: the relationship between dozens of cultures and respect for the environment and responsible consumption.. “People buy impulsively,” he laments before smiling – again, proudly -: “Luckily it gets here.”

Carabali's could be the story of the Moroccan Tarik Benzari, 62, who is part of the classification team or his colleague María Georgina Navarrete, a 44-year-old Peruvian who, in fact, is already permanently in the company after apply for an internal promotion. Karla Gonzalez, Ibrahim Alhassan or Nataliya Khomyn are other hosts. No one smiles like Gambia's Dawda Jassey. At 22 years old – the youngest on the visit, journalists included – he has been at Arropa, the insertion company that collects textiles from containers, for a year. During that time he has obtained his forklift driver's license and is in the process of also obtaining a driving license and passing his ESO.. He wants to be a computer scientist.

“When they arrive, some don't even have the standards to work with,” explains Manuel León, manager of Moda RE, in one of their stores.. This ranges, he acknowledges, from schedule control to hygiene. In any case, it is not a problem for them; If anything, a challenge: “There are very serious wounds and there are people who have a hard time recovering.”. But they get it.

The idea to create this insertion company, in reality, is not so brilliant, in the sense that they collect the tradition of the parishes with the collection of clothing. “There are pioneers who realize that business activity can be generated from this,” he explained before, at the factory.. And they provide employment, precisely, to many of the people who were beneficiaries of that clothing collection.. The Moda RE cooperative was consolidated in 2020, although there was a previous embryo that sought synergies in individual territorial operations.

This is another key in this process in which circularity and recycling take on a not-so-subtle new meaning. Thus, for example, it has allowed them that the clothes they donate to those who need them are not delivered in packages, but are replaced by vouchers that they can exchange – at no cost, of course – in these establishments. In this way, they can not only choose what suits them best, but simply what they like the most. “It is dignifying charity,” summarizes León.